MCG Newsletter 26 05 May 2022

MIDWEST COMPUTER GENEALOGISTS

NEWSLETTER

www.mcgenealogists.org
May, 2022

Volume XXVI

Number 5
archive edition

RESEARCHING THE MITCHELL FAMILY
(1904-1941)

Glynna Elliott Morse

My great grandfather, George Washington Mitchell,
first came to Bates County, Missouri from
Princeton, Kentucky in 1869, and I was planning to
write about his family history. The Mitchell family
goes back to pre-American Revolutionary days,
when three Mitchell brothers arrived in Bertie
County, North Carolina in 1773. My family owes
much to my great aunt, Quincy Mitchell, for
beginning to compile the Mitchell family history
over 100 years ago, a time when she had no access
to computer databases, and much of her research
was done by writing to family cousins and copying
information from family letters. So for this
newsletter, I decided to focus on the research
process of my Great Aunt Quincy.

Quincy Mitchell (1871-1942) was born on a farm
in Bates County, Missouri a few miles northeast of
Butler, Missouri, the first of four children of George
Washington Mitchell and Marion T. Hunter.
Quincy was the sister of my grandmother, Josephine
Ward Mitchell (1875-1911). Both Quincy and
Josephine taught in rural one-room schools in Bates
County before their parents and two brothers moved
to Durant, Indian Territory in 1903, and later the
Indian Territory became the State of Oklahoma.
Quincy taught school in Durant for a few years
before she opened a millinery shop in downtown
Durant in 1913, which she operated until she retired
in the 1930s.

She was active in the DAR, and she wrote and
provided historical information about the early
history of Durant, when it was a frontier town just
opening up when the Katy Railroad came through in
1882.

Quincy began recording family information after the
family had moved to Durant. Quincy Mitchell
intensified her genealogy work when she was
applying for membership in DAR (Daughters of the
American Revolution), and she was granted
membership on the basis of her grandfather,
Thomas Mitchell, who served in the American
Revolutionary War. She gathered dates of birth,
marriage, and death, as well as military records. As
part of her history, Quincy included several short
stories told her by her father along with letters her
father had received from his brothers in Kentucky
when he had moved to Missouri in 1869.

By 1941, she had completed a 35-page “History of
Cato Mitchell and His Descendants,” which she had
typewritten and made carbon copies for various
family members, including my father. No
photocopying was available in Durant, Oklahoma in
1941, and as I recall from manual typewriting
courses, three to five carbon copies was about the
maximum number of legible carbon copies
possible—and Quincy had many relatives with
whom she shared the Mitchell history, so she typed
several copies. (1)

Those of us with access to computers and digitized
databases tend to forget the changes that have
occurred in the last thirty years. I found it
interesting what Quincy wrote in her letter to
relatives as she mailed copies of the Mitchell family
history about how she had researched information.
Below are excerpts from a letter written by Quincy
Mitchell on August 21, 1938 to Florence Nabb, a
cousin living in Princeton, KY:

“T have said to Cousin Mary Lou Fickering more
times than one that I believed that you and I should
put our heads together and write the history of our
family. At least all that we would recall of history,
traditions, stories and reminiscences handed down

from our ancestors. Yours from your mother, mine
from my father.

“T am sorry, now, that I didn’t make a record of the
early history of the Mitchell family as told to me by
my father, for he loved to talk of incidents and
happenings of the long ago. Most all people are
prone to value lightly these facts and incidents when
they are young. Later in life, often too late, they
wake up to the importance of these records. [Many
of us can relate to those words, wishing we had
asked more questions of our relatives. ]

“About 34 years ago [in 1904], when our Aunt
Martha Latta visited us, she had a record of the year
of birth of her brothers and sisters. I had enough
foresight to make a copy of those dates....I believe
the most remote or furthest in the past that I can
recall hearing my father tell is that our great-great
grandfather, Thomas Mitchell, and two brothers
came to America from England a few years [1773]
before the War of the Revolution, settling in Bertie
County, North Carolina. All the brothers enlisted in
the American army, helping gain the independence
of the Colonies.

“....1 was eligible to belong to the DAR, but I had
no specific evidence, and could give no facts as to
my ancestors actual military service....Hearsay and
tradition are not accepted. So Cousin Captola
Dodson Campbell and I became interested in
digging up some real evidence. By perseverance
and much writing to the War Department at
Washington, D. C., we finally established enough
proof to be admitted to the D.A.R....

“Our greatest difficulty was in finding the records of
war service of the right Thomas Mitchell, which, by
the way, happens to be a very common surname. At
that time, Cousin Ruth Latta Johnson’s oldest
daughter, Mrs. Inez Johnson Black, now living in
Washington, D.C Cousin Captola wrote to her and
enlisted her help in investigating the records. There
were three Thomas Mitchells from North Carolina
who had served in the Revolution. After much
writing back and forth and putting our notes
together, we finally established proof that one of the
Thomas Mitchells was our ancestor.”’(1)

Thanks to Quincy’s Mitchell history, she handed
down anecdotal or family stories about our

Revolutionary War ancestor. Today, more
information is becoming available, regimental lists,
pension records, etc., but Quincy directed us to
information about the battles in which Thomas
Mitchell was in the decisive battles of Stony Point
(NY) in 1779 and Cowpens (SC) in 1781.(1)
Thomas Mitchell married Amelia Berryman in
1784, and both remained in North Carolina the rest
of their lives.(2) Not only did Quincy provide
background for Thomas Mitchell, but she also
included a wealth of information about later
generations, providing information that has been
valuable to different branches of the Mitchell
family. Quincy’s legacy is to remind us that what
family information we write today can be helpful to
future generations.

Sources: (1) Compiled by Quincy Mitchell,
“History of Cato Mitchell and Descendants,”
manuscript, January, 1941

(2) William Elsey Connelley & Ellis Merton
Coulter, History of Kentucky, Vol. 3, 1922.

THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER
Al Morse

I finally got to go to the Steamboat Arabia Museum
in Kansas City, Missouri. I have wanted to go for
years. I live at Foxwood Springs, a retirement
community in Raymore, Missouri. They take
residents to see various sites in the Kansas City
area. Nancy Miller, Life Enrichment Coordinator at
Foxwood, scheduled a bus trip for residents to visit
the Arabia Museum. I only had to pay for the
admission to the museum. We had a guide to lead
us and explain many details. We also saw 3 or 4
videos on our walk.

I taught school in Independence, Missouri. I was
aware of the people who discovered the boat, dug
up the remains, and opened the museum. News
articles were in the local newspaper, “ The
Independence Examiner”. Bob Hawley, his family,
and other investors were quoted in the paper.

The Steamboat Arabia was built in 1853. It was 171
feet long and carried up to 222 tons of cargo with its
crew and its passengers. It cruised the Missouri
River starting in St. Louis and traveled up the river

all the way to Iowa. It could make stops at river
towns in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa.

The river was dangerous because of fallen trees. A
steamboat could hit a large limb that was under
water and it could sink boats. During floods, new
channels could be dug out by the river. So boats that
sank could be covered and buried by mud.

On September 5, 1856, the Steamboat Arabia hit a
limb that poked a hole in the boat. The boat sank in
just a few minutes. This was just past Kansas City.
All 150 passengers and crew made it safely off the
boat. Only a donkey that was tied to a rail drowned.
All of the possessions sank. The Missouri River,
over a period of several years, cut another channel,
and the boat was covered by mud.

In 1988, the Bob Hawley family and other investors
found where the boat was buried in a field that was
farmed. The boat was 45 feet underground and
one-half mile from the current Missouri River. It
took a little over 4 months to carefully dig and find
the boat. Little by little, they discovered what was
on board the boat. A rumor was that the boat had
gold or whiskey, but it did not. They found jars of
canned food, buttons, thread, beads, clothing, tools,
building supplies, and weaponry. Most of the
passengers were headed to Iowa to start building
new homes. One of the men opened a jar of pickles
and found that they were still edible.

The original idea was to sell the items found in the
boat, but they decided to build and open a museum.
It took a lot of time to carefully clean the items.
They are still cleaning some of the items. One
example of this process is a keg of nails. They
show a keg of rusted uncleaned nails and and keg of
cleaned nails. Each nail had to be individually
cleaned. They demonstrate the cleaning process.

One of the reasons that I wanted to see the museum
is because of the relatives I had that had traveled
from Virginia to Clay County, Missouri. They
arrived at Liberty Landing in June, 1854. My
great-great grandparents, Isaac and Louisa (Tracey)
Farnsworth, and 3 or 4 young children came. Also,
their oldest daughter, Rachel Elizabeth, and her
husband, Joseph Mooney, and their 3 children came
with them Joseph and Rachel are my great

grandparents. They traveled down the Ohio River,
up the Mississippi River, and up the Missouri River.

Since the records showed that the Steamboat Arabia
only ran on the Missouri River, I wonder if my
relatives came on just one boat or did they have to
change to different boats on the different rivers?
They also brought some personal belongings. They
would have brought clothes, household items,
farming items, etc. They also brought some
furniture. There was an old table in one of the
upstairs bedrooms in my parents’ house. It was in
pretty rough shape, but my mother, Mildred
Catherine (Janssens) Morse, told me that it was
brought by river to Missouri. My wife, Dorothy Jean
(Newcomb) Morse, and I discussed keeping the
table, but we decided to let it sell at the auction.

At the time they came from Virginia, Travel could
be difficult by boat and diseases could be found in
the passengers. Isaac Farnsworth died of cholera.
The crew took his body during the night and buried
him on the banks of the Missouri River. They gave
the family some papers found in his pocket. The
family asked about money, but they said there was
none. But, he had received a lot of money from
selling property in Virginia. The family arrived in
Clay County without much money. It was a tough
life for a while.

(Editor's Note: Both Al and I were very interested in
learning more about the Arabia when we read
“Steamboating on the Missouri River” by Glynna
Elliott Morse in the February issue of the “MCG
Newsletter”. “My daughter, Kathleen Bariteau, sent
me a couple of papers about the discovery of the
sunken Steamboat Malta found in a farm field near
Malta Bend, Missouri. The Malta, which had sunk
in 1841, 1s another sunken steamboat discovery of
the Hawley family, the finders of the sunken
Steamboat Arabia, for which the remains and
contents of the Arabia are now housed in the
Steamboat Arabia Museum in Kansas City. The
Malta sank in 1841, which is a special find because
it dates to an earlier period of steamboats carrying
cargo for trading with fur trading posts, Indians, and
early settlers.” Al was able to go to see the Arabia,
but I was unable to participate at that time. M. S.)

FAMILY HISTORY: WHAT TO INCLUDE?

Campbell Craig Barnds

(Editor's Note: I received the following query from
Cam Barnds, a long-time member of MCG. Cam
used to attend all of our meetings, but, when he
became a SAR member, he had a time conflict since
his chapter met the third Saturday of each month, as
did MCG. However, he has always been a very loyal
and active member. At one time we did some
research for him but were unable to find his 3 great
grandparents. He moved from this area to Fort
Worth to be with his family, but he is still on our
MCG mailing list. He is working on his family
history and wonders what to include. M. S.)

Iam working to put together my personal History. I
am still blessed with a good memory as to events
but Not the dates. I wonder how many details and
events to include.

I am a descendent of families from Pennsylvania
and 3 Revolutionary Patriots, and Iam a member of
the SAR. I am still looking for the parents of my
great great grandfather, Daniel Barnds. (The name
might be spelled Barnes, Barnd, or Barns.) My
mother was Swedish, so my genetics are half
Scandinavian--Swedish.

I was born in 1933 during the Depression of the

1930s My father died when I was 12. My mother

worked at a Business that made steel overhead
folding doors. She worked in downtown Kansas
City on 17th Street across from the Old School. I

learned to drive early because my mother had been

in an accident, and she chose not to drive.

At present, I have 11 grandchildren and 11 great
grandchildren, and more to come.

I just ordered the Missouri Historical Society Book
on the 200 Anniversary of Missouri. I enjoy the
history and stories you and Al write! I would
appreciate any suggestions you may have.

Campbell Craig Barnds, Fort Worth

WRITING FAMILY HISTORY
Marjorie Slavens

When my mother, Mildred Welty Slavens, began
her family history research in the 1970s, she had no
idea she would be writing books about her family
lines. She knew very little about her ancestors
beyond her own grandparents. Her sisters told her
she should do this research since she was the oldest,
but she had very little information about her
ancestors beyond her own grandparents. She
certainly did not know she would be producing
books on her Welty, Eppright, Kerr, Crawford, and
Heape ancestors and a small volume, Welty Family
Letters She completed three editions of the Welty
book, the third having 330 pages, and two editions
of the Kerr, Eppright, and Heape books. In addition
to these books, she also had created unpublished
books on the Cocghnowers, Millers, Meadows,
Tefertillers, etc., from her line and the Slavens,
Parks, Heslers, Westmeiers, and related families
from my father’s line.

She first used Family Tree Maker to preserve her
data and later began to prepare the books. She
published al00 page Welty book with a few pages
about the Epprights and another book of about 50
pages about the Kerrs with a few pages about the
Heapes in 1981. She typed these books on the
manual Royal typewriter my parents gave me for
graduation from high school. The third edition of
the Welty book had about 330 pages, and she was
completing a third edition of the Eppright book
shortly before her death, having moved from a
manual typewriter to a computer I gave her for her
86" birthday. Her early research was done in
libraries, court houses, genealogical societies,
cemeteries, etc., and her later research expanded
through her use of the Internet.

How much information one includes in such
publications depends on the research and the
information received. We never finish our
genealogical research, but it is important to preserve
for future generations the information we have and
to continue to research to find new information. We
will never retrieve all of the information about our
ancestors, but we should preserve what we find so

future generations can have this information as they
continue their own research.

Her books had a Table of Contents, a Preface, in
which she introduced the subject and acknowledged
the people and organizations who had helped her in
this research. She included a “Key” or
“Organization” of the book to explain the format
she used. I indexed all of her books; we
encountered a number of books from the 19" and
early 20" centuries that were not indexed, and it was
difficult at times to find the information about our
family members.

“ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

This history begins with the first generation in
America, Peter Welty, who came to this country in
1727. The first generation of the family is
designated by the letter "P". Each succeeding
generation is designated by a number. For example,
Linda Jean Shockley Donahue is listed as 1-2-1-6-8-
4-]1-2-P. Linda is the first child (1) of Beverly Jean
Slavens Shockley (2), the second child of Mildred
Marie Welty Slavens (1), the first child of Edward
Alonzo Welty (6), the sixth child of Henry Welty
(8), the eighth child of John Welty (4), the fourth
child of John Welty, Jr. (11), the eleventh child of
John Welty, Sr. (2), the second child of Peter Welty
(P). Roman numerals refer to generations of the
family, and Peter Welty is the first generation.”

The length of articles about family members varies
according to the information that could be found.
Following are two examples of individual
biographies, one which she wrote about her uncle,
Walter William Welty, about whom we had very
little information, and the second about Mother,
which I wrote.

“VI. Family of Walter William Welty

Walter William Welty (3-8-4-11-2-P), son of Henry
Welty (8-4-11-2-P) and Catharine Mary Eppright,
was born September 27, 1875 in Jasper County,
Missouri. He was a farmer and rural mail carrier in
the Carthage, Missouri area. He married Hattie, a
widow with a son named Elmer. Walter Welty died

July 14, 1941 near Carthage, Missouri. He was
buried at Green Lawn Cemetery, Jasper, Missouri”.

“VII. Family of Mildred Marie Welty

Mildred Marie Welty (1-6-8-4-11-2-P), daughter of
Edward Alonzo Welty (6-8-4-11-2-P) and Hattie
Lee Kerr, was born December 2, 1910 in Kansas
City, Missouri. She moved to Kansas City, Kansas
in 1914 and attended the first three grades at Abbott
School. The family then moved to another location,
and she attended Hawthorne School. She entered
Northwest Junior High, graduating in 1925. She
graduated from Kansas City, Kansas High School in
1928 and attended Kansas City, Kansas Junior
College for two years in a teacher training course
for teachers for the Kansas City, Kansas schools.

On October 12, 1930, she married Ralph Westmeier
Slavens, who was born May 28, 1907 at Seymour,
Indiana. He was the son of William Howard Slavens
and Edna Marie Westmeier of Webb City,
Oklahoma. His grandparents were John Reuben
Slavens and Laura Martin Hesler of Clinton, Henry
County, Missouri and Christian Westmeier and
Wilhelmina Gilman of Seymour, Indiana. They
were married at her parents' home in Kansas City,
Kansas. Her parents; her brother, Edward; her
sisters, Virginia, Kathryn and Evelyn; her
grandmother, Millie Kerr; his mother, Edna
Slavens; and his grandmother, Laura Hesler,
attended the wedding. After the wedding, they
moved to Asbury, Missouri, but he was soon laid
off at the mines because of the depression. Younger
employees with less seniority were the first to lose
their jobs as the depression intensified. They lived
for a while in Oklahoma with his parents and then
in Kansas City with her parents while Ralph
attended barber college. After the birth of their son,
George Everett, they moved to Shidler, Oklahoma,
where Ralph operated a barber shop, sold cars and
license tags, and was the Justice of the Peace.

The Slavens family endured the same economic
problems that were experienced by many young
families in Oklahoma during the depression years.
In 1939, they moved to Pittsburg, Kansas, where he
had a tire repair business. Ralph obtained work for

the National Lead Company on April 1, 1940 for
$17.00 a week. He continued to work for this
company most of the time until his retirement in
1972.

They moved to Columbus, Kansas in November,
1940 and to Carl Junction, Missouri in December,
1941. He was transferred to Fredericktown,
Missouri in 1945, where they lived until the
company transferred him to St. Louis Missouri in
1961.

After his retirement, he worked part-time for a
while. He liked to travel and to read. He read books
about the old west, archaeology, religion and
history, and Zane Grey was one of his favorite
authors.

Ralph and Mildred Slavens celebrated their golden
wedding anniversary in 1980 at the home of their
daughter, Carol and Larry Johns, in Blue Springs,
Missouri. They were married for almost 53 years.
They were members of the Christian Church,
Disciples of Christ and were very active in the
Fredericktown Christian Church and the Union
Avenue Christian Church in St. Louis, Missouri. As
a member of the board of the Fredericktown
Christian Church, he was a founder and supervisor
of the Orchard Crest Camp which had been donated
to the church. He served as president of the
Madison County School Board, also was a member
of the Fredericktown School Board. Mildred played
the organ for the church and was an active member
of the Christian Women's Fellowship.

Ralph was a Mason, A.F. & A.M. for 55 years.
During the time he lived in Oklahoma he served as
Worshipful Master of his lodge and he also was
appointed Grand Lecturer of the Oklahoma Grand
Lodge. Mildred and Ralph were both members of
the Order of Eastern Star. She served as Worthy
Matron of Faith Chapter # 334 of Carl Junction,
Missouri in 1945, and he served as Worthy Patron
of McDonald Chapter # 128 in Fredericktown,
Missouri. He was also a member of the Odd
Fellows while they lived in Shidler, Oklahoma and
served as Noble Grand. Mildred was a member of
the Rebekahs there and served as Noble Grand. In
Fredericktown, Missouri, she served as Guardian of

the Job's Daughters when her daughter, Carol, was
Honored Queen of that organization. She is a
member of the D.A.R.

Ralph Slavens died of cancer at Jewish Hospital, St.
Louis, Missouri on August 14, 1983. He is buried in
Oak Grove Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

Mildred Slavens moved to Blue Springs, Missouri
in 1990 and to Foxwood Springs Living Center,
Raymore, Missouri in August, 1998. She is an
active genealogist and has published books on her
Welty, Crawford, Kerr, Eppright, and Heape
ancestors. She works at libraries in Independence,
Missouri and likes to travel to Washington, D. C.,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and other
cities in Missouri to do her research. She has
traveled in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Argentina.

She died of complications following surgery on
June 30, 2008 at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City,
Missouri. She is buried in Floral Hills East
Cemetery, Lee’s Summit, Missouri.”

The family books all included documents, such as
wills, marriage licenses, birth certificates where
available, and pictures. We had them duplicaated,
but we assembled and bound them. Now, we would
probably have the books published online, but that
option was not available when she published her
books.

FAMILY INFORMATION IN THE
U.S CENSUS AGRICULTURAL SCHEDULES

Julia Morse

If you have ancestors involved in farming in the
U.S. in the years 1850 through 1880, you may be
able to access a rich amount of information about
their farming activities—and thus, about their day-
to-day family life--from a so-called “non-
population” schedule of the U.S. Census called the
“Agricultural Schedule.” Categories of information
vary slightly according to the year, but basic
information includes the acreage (“improved” and
“unimproved”), value of farm implements, numbers
of livestock, and harvest amounts.

As an example, I found the record for our ancestor,
Cader Mitchell’s 1850 farm in Caldwell County,
Kentucky. It records the following information:

Improved Acres: 150

Unimproved Acres: 500

Cash value of Farm: $3,500

Value of farming Implements and Machinery: $175
Livestock on June 1, 1850: 5 horses, 1 milch cow
(or perhaps it is a 6?), 4 working oxen, 10 other
cattle, 18 sheep, 180 swine; value of livestock
estimated at $900.

Produce harvested in the year ending June 1, 1850:
40 bushels of wheat; 1,000 bushels of Indian corn;
100 bushels of oats; 30 pounds of rice; 3,500
pounds of tobacco; 60 pounds of wool; 10 bushels
of beans; 150 bushels of potatoes; 300 pounds of
butter; 300 pounds of flax (not flaxseed); 90 pounds
of beeswax and honey; $70 in handmade
manufactured product; and $130 value of
slaughtered animal.

We can compare these numbers with their
neighbors. The acreage of the Cader Mitchell farm
was comparable to their neighbors’, on the higher
end, but similar to several neighbors, and not the
largest. However, we find that the Mitchell family
was the top hog producer, raising two to three times
as many hogs as neighboring farms, who generally
had between 2 and 100 hogs, compared to the
Mitchell’s 180. This suggests an emphasis toward
this line of enterprise. They likewise far exceeded
their neighbors in Irish potato production. They
were the second highest butter producer in the
neighborhood--about twice the amount of the
average family—which leads us to wonder if we
have misinterpreted the handwritten “1” milch cow,
which might have perhaps been a failed “6” on the
part of the recorder (or else they had sold off some
cows prior to the June 1 enumeration). The
Mitchell family was in line with the highest of their
tobacco-producing neighbors, and they produced
about the same amount of wheat and Indian corn as
their neighbors (on the medium high side, but not
the highest). (“Indian corn” is the only type of corn
listed on the 1850 census form.) Unlike their nearest
neighbors, they did not grow sweet potatoes (or, if
they did, the crop failed).

As this farm was in a slave state, I also checked the
slave schedule for an idea of how much of the farm
was worked by enslaved persons. A family story
suggests that, in 1840, when Cader’s wife, Martha
Ann Nichols Mitchell died, leaving a household of
children, relatives helped teach the girls how to
supervise household slaves. Great Aunt Quincy
recorded a family story dating to 1845, when “some
of the older members of the family and the slaves
arose early enough to see the caravan” of a circus
pass along the road. After some begging, the
younger children in the household were allowed to
go into town to see the circus “in the care of faithful
old Aunt Sylvia and her husband.” We know that
Aunt Sylvia, a household slave, and “her children”
had been dear enough to the family to be buried in
the family cemetery. Another family story recorded
by Great Aunt Quincy mentions “the Mitchell
slaves” being occasionally visited by an intelligent
mixed-race enslaved neighbor named Emma
Hunter. (1) This was remembered from the
childhood of Great Aunt Quincy’s mother, born in
1847 and before one of the Mitchell girls (named in
the story) was married in 1855. So, by this account,
there were some “Mitchell slaves” in the early
1850’s. However, as far as I could find in the 1850
slave schedule, there were only three enslaved
persons listed for the Cader Mitchell family in
1850: One 23-year old female, a 2-year-old boy,
and 3-month-old infant girl. We presume that Aunt
Sylvia had since been buried in the family cemetery.
We will dig further, (given the seeming discrepancy
with the family stories), but these demographics
seem to indicate that the family did not depend on
slaves for the bulk of the farm labor, unless hired
out from neighboring slaves. The 1850 population
census records three adult Mitchell sons in addition
to Cader Mitchell farming at home, plus a younger
son (13-year-old George Washington Mitchell, our
ancestor), and three daughters. A 20-year-old
“farmer” named James M. Lang, not known to be a
family member, was also in the household; we
presume he helped with the farm as a hired hand.

All-in-all, compared with the agricultural situation
and production of their neighbors, the Cader
Mitchell family seemed hard-working and
comfortably successful. This conclusion seems in
line with Emma Hunter’s stories of the fine silk

dresses worn by two teenage Mitchell girls at a local
gathering. (1)

Professional genealogist Lissa Lisson (2) suggests
additional uses for the information in the
agricultural schedule. If your family farm has
listings in multiple years, you can compare the
values between different decades to see if the farm
output has improved over time. This can be
particularly useful if you would like to see how the
family farm might have been affected by the Civil
War or events in your family. (In the case of Cader
Mitchell he had died in 1858, so improvement is
harder to track, though could be further scrutinized
through estate records and his descendant’s farm
records.)

You can use the agricultural information (such as
acreage amounts and neighbors in the listing) along
with the population census of the same year, estate
data, etc., to help confirm that you have matched
your ancestor to the correct family listing in the
population census. The agricultural census could
also be helpful to confirm when the accompanying
population census record has illegibility in the
name.

Likely one of the reasons that the agricultural
schedules are not as widely used by family
historians is that digitized images are still
sporadically available and are usually not indexed
by searchable databases. Ancestry.com is said to
provide access to the images and provide some
indexing, though I could not confirm this. For free
access, you have to do a little sleuthing to determine
digitized access. Below I have provided links for
states I was able to find. We will also provide these
links through our MCG _ website:
https://mcgenealogists.org/2020/03/01/favorite-free-
research-tools/

For some states, you may have to visit a historical
library or genealogical center to access the records
on microfilm.

The good news for MCG readers is that Missouri is
one of the states with excellent access to their
Agricultural Schedule images! The Missouri
Secretary of State Archives provides PDF links to
the years 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880:

https://www.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/census/pa
ges/agsup

These are not indexed. (Side note: While you are
there, you might see if there are tax lists or state
censuses for your Missouri ancestor as_ well:
https://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/c
ensus/Default.aspx.)

Some of the Pennsylvania Census Agricultural
Schedules appear to be available at:
http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/ag
riculture/census/index.html.

Duke University houses Agricultural Census
Schedules at:

https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/censusschedule
ss for the following States: Colorado, District of
Columbia, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana,
Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wyoming. The
Kentucky Agricultural Census records are also
available and indexed name at FamilySearch.org.
This makes it quicker to search out possible family
names from within Kentucky, even if you are unsure
of the county or township. Access is free, but you
have to register for a free login. Direct link to the
United States, Kentucky, Agricultural Schedules,
1850 -— 1880 is United States, Kentucky,
Agricultural Schedules, 1850-1880 * FamilySearch.
Or, from the menu, select Search > Records. Near
the bottom left, use the “Find a Collection” tool by
typing in the word “Agricultural.” Once at the
collection page, type in the family name and county
of interest to help you find the page image of
interest.

Sources: (1) Quincy Mitchell, “History of Cato
Mitchell and Descendants,” manuscript, January,
1941.

(2) Lisa Lisson, “Did My Ancestor's Farm Prosper
or Fail?,” Legacy Family Tree, 8 Jul 2015,
https://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/201
5/07/using-the-agricultural-schedules-in-your-
genealogy-research.html, accessed 24 May 2022.

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